Tuesday

After walking Toby around the neighborhood this morning, we drove to the causeway to walk. As we arrived at the drawbridge, we saw this spectacular house boat go through. Here’s the story of the boat house.

We took the car so we could go to the Garden Room before lunch. We got one more of the large bush with purple flowers and one more of the little ground cover plants with tiny red flowers. You can see them in the picture above, on this end of the bed.

It fills things in a bit.

We got this little blue-flowered plant to go in front of the stump (it’s called “Blue My Mind”). This one may have to be moved in favor of something orange or yellow. The blue is the same color as the blue in the bird of paradise.

This bed beside the garage now has mulch and the transplanted hydrangeas. The monkey grass is gone.

After lunch we did training, fetching, and walking. We drove downtown to give Toby a fresh place to walk. He got to meet a couple of dogs and sniff and play a bit.

And roll around in the grass.

He got his dinner in both of his brain games simultaneously. I noticed that it was much harder for him this way. The strategies are different and he would forget how they worked going back and forth. He got a little frustrated, but he eventually uncovered all his kibble. It’s hard to multi-task, right?

Tired doggie, mentally and physically 

I finally got around to fixing my boo boo when we put the entry hall fixture in. I didn’t think we needed a dimmer, so I got non-dimmable LED bulbs. It turned out that the light was as bright as the sun. We seldom turned it on, except during delicate operations—such as splinter removals or threading a needle.

I installed a dimmer switch and ordered new lights that are dimmable. 

It was a costly mistake, but I read it would take 33 years for the old bulbs to burn out if they were on 4 hours a day! 

Life’s too short to live with annoying mistakes like that.

Entrance light from the outside.

Miles walked: 9.8

Miles biked: 0

The end of the month signals the time to take stock of our walking and biking. Here are the latest figures for this month and the previous months:

August Walking, Average Miles Per Day

6.8 (210.8 miles total)

August Biking
18 days of riding, 156.50 total miles, Average distance per day/ride: 8.69

 

Previous months walking 

July

6.2 (192.2 miles total)

June 

7.3 (219 miles total)

May

6.8 (210 miles total)

April 

8.2 (246)

 

March 

8.6 (266.6)

 

February 

8.1

 

January
7.0 miles

 

December 

5.6 miles

 

November

5.2 miles 

 

October 

6.7 miles

September
8.5 miles 

August
6.3 miles

July
6.7 miles

June
5.8 miles

Previous months biking:

July Biking

23 days of riding, 271.24 total miles, Average distance per day/ride: 11.79

June Biking
25 days of riding, 407.60 total miles, Average distance per day/ride: 16.30

May

24 days of riding, 281.43 total miles, Average distance per day/ride: 11.73  

April 
20 days of riding, 224.65 total miles, Average distance per day/ride: 11.23 

March
22 days of riding, 222.18 total miles, Average distance per day/ride: 10.10 

February 
7 days of riding, 78.62 total miles, Average distance per day/ride: 11.23

January
17 rides, 97.31 total miles, Average distance per day/ride: 5.72

December
17 rides, 130.59 total  miles, Average distance per ride: 7.68

November
16 rides, 88.08 total miles, Average distance per ride: 5.51

October  
18 rides, 240.44 total miles, Average distance per ride: 13.36

September
23 rides, 412.04 total miles, Avg distance: 17.91 miles

August
24 rides, 355.91 total miles, Avg distance: 14.83 miles

July
23 rides, 274.26 total miles, Avg distance: 11.92 miles

 

June

20 rides, 264.25 total miles, Avg. distance: 13.21 miles